Haunted Eyes
by Jilly-chan
Summary: Hilde encounters Duo, Trowa, Heero and others in a world without Gundams and, often, without hope for redemption. 2xH, 1xH, 3x4 (sort of)


Haunted Eyes  
by Jilly-chan  
  
(Disclaimer: I do not own the Gundam Wing boys,  
in fact, I don't know if their original creators  
would even recognize them beyond their names in  
this alternate reality fic. But, I credit them  
for thinking up wonderful characters to toy with.  
Expect the guys to be slightly OOC for creative   
purposes. For one of my fics, this is sort of   
dark—beware I'm toying with angst.)  
  
We hadn't planned on them catching us this  
quickly. And after I tasted blood for the second  
time that evening, I passed out.   
  
Duo tells me not to go with his eyes. He calls me   
stupid and pulls my arm and then reminds me that he   
only cares about me. I'm convinced he mostly cares if   
I cook, that's why he doesn't like me running off with   
Heero and his ruffians.  
  
"I don't like this." Duo would frown and chew on  
his lower lip in worry. I do that, chew on my  
lip. I'm pretty sure he picked up that habit from  
taking care of me these past few years. And then  
I met Heero, and I was perfectly willing to let  
Heero take care of me now. But I knew I'd miss  
Duo then.   
  
Now I'm sitting in a dark room. It could be small  
or it could be a gigantic cavern. All I know it  
that it's as dark as tar. As thick as tar. And I  
can hear someone breathing all ragged like each  
molecule of air is being twisted through a maze of  
jagged caves. The oxygen being broken and beaten  
against the rocks before passing through the  
proper tunnels.  
  
I'm a stupid girl. Duo was right.  
  
The city was big enough to swallow a girl my age.   
In fact, several girls my age were gobbled up by  
one thing or another. Prostitution, a cheap job,  
death. Heck, they were all the same to me. Until  
Duo Maxwell picked me out of my best job ever as a  
truck stop waitress and put me on the train to  
straight living.  
  
"What's your name?" He asked me as I poured his  
second cup of java that morning. It was morning  
rather than night by maybe two hours.  
  
"Hilde, sugah." I stopped pouring the tar thick  
liquid just shy of spilling it over the brim.   
Duo's like that, he'll get you distracted all real  
quick and easy like. I tried not to seem as  
interested in him as I felt. He had this caramel  
or toffee colored hair. I thought of sticky foods  
because I thought of how nice it would be to run  
my fingers through them until they were real stuck  
and he'd have to take me with him where ever he  
went.  
  
And his eyes were so blue I was almost knocked  
over by them, but my hands were stuck in his hair  
remember? Or I wanted them to be. But when those  
eyes lingered just a moment longer than even the  
most persistent of trucker's longing gazes I  
realized that he wasn't interested in a romp or in  
letting me whittle my fingers through his hair.   
His eyes were haunted.  
  
I might have been a ghost to him.  
  
"Hilde." He repeated, and turned to look deep  
into his java instead of peering at me with those  
creepy eyes. Not that he was creepy, mind you.   
Just that he was haunted by something terrible.   
And of course, I reminded him of that ghastly  
image that those eyes had seen before.  
  
Of course, I didn't know that at the time, but I  
knew better than to be scared of him when I got  
off my shift and saw that he had parked his semi  
next to my bicycle.   
  
It was sort of funny. I had stolen this little  
bike from a grocery store parking lot so that I  
didn't have to walk to work any more. Guys can't  
grab you as easy if you have some sort of wheels  
to carry you faster and farther. And here my  
stolen little bicycle was chained up to the light  
post. And Duo Maxwell was leaning up against the  
same pole, twirling the keys to his truck around  
one finger.   
  
He was whistling as I came up, and, when he turned  
toward my approaching footsteps, the gaze he  
beamed on me wasn't with those haunted eyes. It  
was with genuine affection--if two cups of coffee  
and a generous tip can bring about anything  
genuine between people.   
  
He offered to take me away, and I said yes.  
  
I don't know what I was imagining, but I never  
expected Duo Maxwell. Oh yeah, he told me his  
name as we drove through the rest of the dark  
morning and into the dawn. It was like we were  
driving into the fire of our future. I was the  
rescued girl and my knight was taking me off to  
the castle for the stuff that came after the  
credits roll in the movie.  
  
I didn't get what I was expecting. Not that what  
I got was bad. I got a bed and my own room. I  
got a chance to cook and then I realized that was  
the way Duo expected me to earn my stay. Not that  
cooking is hard or unreasonable. It wasn't even  
that he was sexist. Duo just couldn't cook, and  
neither could his roommate.  
  
Trowa Barton was nice enough and just way too  
thin. Even when I started cooking enough for a  
small army and made sure Trowa ate his fair share-  
-nothing grew on that fellow. It troubled me.   
Something else was making Trowa sick. And his  
eyes were always haunted.  
  
We lived in this small house on the corner of a  
neighborhood that was too poor to start trouble  
and too smart to bring any home with them. Duo  
and Trowa were good examples of the sort that  
lived there. They all had some sort of captured  
life that they sheltered in a small shell of grey  
flesh and bones. Like a community of hidden  
rainbows, only the rainbows weren't allowed out  
even when the raining was over.  
  
I suppose I belonged there too, and that's why Duo  
brought me.   
  
Things went well enough for us. Duo was the  
liveliest of us all. His grey flesh almost looked  
golden in the sunlight. "Hello. Hello." he  
would wave at all the neighbors and they would  
wave back. Everything was alright.  
  
He even got Trowa to laugh once. I can't remember  
what the joke was and I can't remember what his  
laugh sounded like, but it happened. I wrote it  
down on the calendar.  
  
Duo had kept the same calendar for years by simply  
reusing it over and over again. He really had no  
confidence about the date other than what day of  
the week it was, but it was how he managed to keep  
a concept of time in the blur of living. I had to  
admit it beat carving notches in the tree or in  
the corner of my kitchen. Besides, he had the  
good fortune of recycling a calendar with pictures  
of various beaches around the world. Year after  
year it would seem like we had a chance to visit  
them all in their proper season.  
  
Year after year. That stupid calendar over and  
over again. I must have seen it seven times. I  
must have lived in that time loop with them for  
seven years. And that stupid calendar was the  
only way I had of telling.  
  
Seven years and we didn't get any closer really  
and I didn't learn why Duo's sweet hair was so  
long or why Trowa's pants came out of the laundry  
looking like twin toothpicks. I guess I could  
have asked. But I wasn't smart, remember?  
  
They didn't ask me to do anything but cook while  
Duo drove his truck and Trowa went by train into  
the city to work for the factory. Doing the  
laundry was just something nice I suggested to  
fill the boring hours between Trowa's shifts and  
Duo's weekend trips.  
  
And then I wondered why I was caging my sparks of  
life. I was going to leave this ho-hum living and  
earn some adventures. I couldn't believe I had  
sat through that calendar as long as I had. So I  
left a note and disappeared.   
  
I figured they wouldn't starve. Duo could always  
shoot down another waitress with those blue canons  
he called eyes. So why was I leaving? A girl  
gets bored, y'know.  
  
I was gone for a week. I shacked up with a guy  
from up north who thought that I was cute enough.   
It sort of was insulting, so I started back to  
Duo. He'd let me come back, I was sure.  
  
It was when my bicycle was stolen from me that I  
started hitchhiking. And that's when I met Heero  
Yuy. He was a tight-lipped Japanese punk. He  
wasn't into anything or part of anything, but  
isolated and in himself, Heero Yuy was a country.   
"I am a rock. I am an island. Heero Yuy."  
  
He might have been tight-lipped but that didn't  
keep him from sharing his dreams of becoming a  
world leader. He was ambitious. The terrible  
sweet flavor of his politics were like a melody of  
bitter chocolates.  
  
I don't remember what he said as much as that  
whatever he said melted my heart. I loved him.  
  
He must have loved me because he drove me all the  
way up to Duo Maxwell's front door. On the grass,  
I mean. That's either service or some sort of  
macho competition.  
  
Duo managed to meander onto the porch and examine  
the damage to his lawn. He had this easy going  
smile on his face, one that barely betrayed the  
anxiety he must have felt for having his solace  
broken. "Oi, Hilde. You cut your hair."  
  
I was beginning a new life I thought. Nothing  
completes that like a haircut. I was an all or  
nothing kind of girl. I didn't have any hair  
anymore. But, why had I come back to Duo?  
  
"Maxwell." Heero snarled the name I had shared  
with him. It wasn't aggressive and I think all of  
us knew that. It was just how Heero communicated  
when he wasn't chewing his ambitious cud. Snarls,  
growls, and other primal indications of life  
unleashed from it's domestic cages.  
  
His hair was ill kept except for the growing wind  
that wound it up in its invisible fingers and  
seemed to want to untangle it. It pulled up from  
two brilliant eyes. Both of which, I saw in a  
flash, we just as blue as Duo's that first day I  
met him. But then they were gone and he was the  
flashing and energetic creature that hypnotized my  
spirit. Heero was magnetic.  
  
And he pulled Duo toward him.   
  
I wanted to watch, but I felt compelled to go into  
the house instead. Perhaps my attraction to Duo  
was stronger than I thought it was. A drifting  
piece of metal never knows where she'll end up.  
  
Trowa was resting on the couch with a worn green  
cloth covering his eyes and half of his face. One  
pencil arm hung off the edge of his resting place  
and brushed across the floor with a gentle stroke.   
  
  
"Trowa?" I asked then, a bit nervous.  
  
"Is that you, Hilde?" he asked. I had the  
feeling he knew it was me before I said his name,  
before he recognized my voice, before Duo told him  
who was coming up by the window. Trowa had this  
perception about him that seemed like the most  
amplified of his characteristics.  
  
I said as much, "You're so perceptive, Trowa."   
  
He pulled his narrow form together and shuddered.   
"No." He whispered.  
  
I watched his lip pull down into the saddest  
expression I've ever seen. I loved Trowa then and  
rushed to his side. "Don't cry, Trowa, no. No.   
No tears for Trowa. He's okay."  
  
I'm really bad at the comforting thing. But his  
visible lips straightened into their regular  
solemn arches. Now he lacked everything, even  
sorrow.  
  
"You've got me, Trowa." I tried again.   
"Remember, Hilde who cooks and cleans? I left for  
a while, but now I'm bored again and want to take  
care of you."  
  
"He needs people to stay with him." Duo murmured  
behind me. He must have come back in while I  
fretted over Trowa's sudden depression. "Enough  
people have left him as it is."   
  
"What's that?" I asked, I hadn't quite forgotten  
about Heero Yuy and wondered why he hadn't come in  
as well. I had told him that he'd be welcome to  
stay with me in my room even if the boys were a  
little frustrated at first.  
  
"Tell her." Trowa's voice came out of the small  
mouth with so few emotions. With the towel draped  
over his eyes, it was the only expression of which  
Trowa was capable.  
  
Duo's eyes looked hurt now. More sorrow than he  
could contain in those illuminating objects. I  
pulled my heart back to safety and was ready to  
hear anything.  
  
They told me about how they had met as young boys  
in a small gang in a city far away. It was a  
rather low key organization that let youngsters  
tag along if they wanted. Trowa and Duo had both  
been orphaned by some way or another. Duo had left   
his foster home and Trowa had come home from school   
to find his house empty. The story didn't explain  
either situation very well.  
  
Then, Trowa had some sort of fancy for the son of a  
traveling parson. I wasn't sure exactly how  
Trowa had an affection for this blond Quatre, but   
during the story I could here him breathe, "my angel,   
my angel." Or something like that. The whole thing   
got rather confused and muddled when Trowa wanted to  
go with Quatre to the next stop on their circuit.  
Another punk in the street family decided to mess up  
Quatre's pretty face instead of letting Trowa and  
Duo go with him. Quatre had been killed and  
somehow immortalized in Trowa's confused thinking.   
Dead people seem to have a way about getting more  
and more beautiful to their loved ones. It's  
either that or they're simply forgotten.  
  
Trowa had refused to believe that his angel could  
be destroyed and murdered a few people who were  
responsible.   
  
I simply listened. I was ready for anything.  
  
No wonder Trowa was sick all the time. He wasn't  
the sort that should be killing people. Here he  
killed a handful of bad ones years ago and he  
would never forgive himself.  
  
His lips never moved. For all I knew, Trowa was  
dead himself.  
  
"Ok." I said, feeling leftover sassy but trying to   
let my genuine sympathy slip out. "I know, something   
in everyone's past seems like an awful dream. And  
then you remember it's real." I wanted to scream  
something like "Life continues! Live already!" but  
what came out was something like, "I'm back for  
good. Can I cook you something special, Trowa  
love?"  
  
I'm not perfect, so I'm not going to tell someone  
else what to do.  
  
Trowa was haunted by a blond angel who died over  
seven years ago. So be it. It meant that he had  
had something worth having once in his life.   
Something worth missing that much. I wondered  
what that felt like.  
  
More blood in my mouth. It tastes like a thick  
brew to get drunk on, to pass out with, but it  
makes me horribly awake right now. Nothing's  
where it belongs anymore.  
  
I heard Trowa's story and knew why he looks like  
Gumby sideways. His clothes loosely hanging on him  
like they looked on the hanger. He was  
practically invisible, but we saw him. And Duo  
could make him laugh.  
  
Our neighbor came over then. His name was Wufei  
Something-or-other and he sometimes barbequed with  
us on the back porch. Duo likes porches. He  
build one on the front with a screen, an open one  
on the back, and a small deck off his own room.   
He said he liked to have partial access to nature  
while still remaining in some sort of community  
with the civilization of the house. I said he was  
stupid, but I liked the porch swing he had picked  
up in the week that I was gone. I wondered if he  
was planning to sit out there on it and watch for me  
to come home.  
  
Wufei wasn't interested in porches more than they  
were how he got to knock at the front door. He  
wasn't happy.  
  
"You need help, Maxwell?" he offered with some  
spicy aggravation, "Who's tearing up your property  
now?" He glanced at me, I don't think he was  
suggesting that I was bad news, maybe he had just  
noticed that I was back again.  
  
Duo laughed easily, you wouldn't believe that he  
had just told his best friend's entire life story  
that included a dark vision of a painful history.   
Trowa had sat up and nodded to Wufei in greeting.   
I took a moment to appreciate seeing his salty  
olive eyes. He might have been crying, or maybe  
the damp rag had been easing a completely  
different irritation.  
  
"Is that a 'no'?" Wufei shrugged and slipped past  
Duo and into the front room. It was darker now  
and the sun must have been sinking itself while we  
spoke in memorial of a distant angel.  
  
The Chinese man sat at the end of the couch when Trowa  
curled up his splintery legs. "You cut your hair,  
Hilde." our neighbor observed.  
  
I slid my hand against the smooth scalp. I didn't  
miss it. But I had missed something, hadn't I?   
"Don't worry, Wufei. I'm going to tattoo something  
*brilliant* over this shiny globe." I teased.  
  
Wufei didn't appreciate my idea of humor. I think  
Duo laughed to be polite. "Like what?" Wufei  
baited me, or maybe he was just trying to do his  
part to fill in the conversation.  
  
"I dunno." I waltzed around the room, three  
pairs of eyes followed my jerky movements.   
Haunted eyes, dark eyes, and curiously alive eyes.   
I was sure Wufei had his own share of secrets if  
he would visit these two crazy guys. Anyone who  
spent any time with Duo and Trowa had to be crazy.  
  
I also felt a bit put off suddenly. "I might have  
the face of my darling tattooed on there."  
  
"Maxwell's mug on yo. . ." Wufei started when he  
recognized the words that I had spoken at the same  
time.  
  
"Heero Yuy."  
  
When Wufei stopped talking mid-thought, I made the  
sinking connection that Duo had been talking to  
Heero. That Duo had been having words with Heero  
outside all along. While I had worried over  
Trowa's thin lips, Duo had been outside. The  
entire time. Alone. Not alone, with Heero.  
  
If I hadn't cut my hair, none of this would have  
happened. If I hadn't wanted the grass on the  
other side of the fence to munch on, maybe I would  
have stayed to cook for my boys. If I hadn't been  
born a complete fool, maybe I would have lived my  
life differently. My favorite word is "if."   
  
In a careless phrase I had accidentally, and  
Almost completely , replaced my darling knight who had   
carried me off in his truck from the dark castle of   
the city and into the forest of this junkyard  
definition of a suburb.  
  
Duo is more forgiving than anyone I know.  
  
And I don't put the pieces of my life together  
until I'm sitting in the pitch black waters of  
near silence, with blood I can taste in my mouth,  
and the tragic whispers of someone who doesn't  
much enjoy breathing and still is hanging on to life.   
  
I thought all he wanted was a cook. And he was  
simply never asking me to give more than I was  
willing. I was the one who insisted on being  
nothing more than a cook. I was the one who  
didn't care.   
  
Now I care.  
  
But then I felt torn between sneering and crying  
as Duo calmly told me that Heero Yuy was a gang  
member who they had fled from all those years ago  
when Trowa had lost his precious golden Quatre.   
They didn't deserve this sort of action in their  
life, and they were warning me away from the one  
most alive and fascinating man I had ever met.  
  
Heero was controlled passion. He was collected  
humanity in one vessel. He had none of the  
depressing angst that these three fellows carried  
like garbage.  
  
*Memories, Hilde.* I tell myself as I hear a  
shuffling of feet that seem miles away, down the  
track, and right next to me. *They carried  
treasured memories that slipped through those  
haunted eyes like jeweled tears.*  
  
A light slips under the crack of a door that opens  
in and toward where I sit. I rub at my jaw and  
feel the slick of blood. It reminds me of the  
slick of my bare head. I wished I could have  
Duo's braid to cover my brash spirit.  
  
I glance over to see that Heero is hurt much worse  
than I imagined. His eyes are forever squeezed  
shut in sorrow. And I know, he has memories too.   
A wealth of memories that he's buried deeper than  
anyone else.  
  
I began to suspect Heero was trapped too. I left  
again. I left after I had promised Trowa. I had  
left after I had danced my jerky waltz to the tune  
of Heero Yuy's name which was tattooed on my brain   
anyway.  
  
I was a crazy girl.   
  
I left after Duo had forgiven my outburst. I  
left after he had forgiven me for betraying where  
they had lived safely and in comfort and with  
porches for years and years. I left after Duo had  
bought me a plane ticket to go with them to where  
ever they were going to go next.   
  
Why did I leave, you ask? Well, Heero came back.   
He tapped on my window and gave me his devilish  
grin and had whispered to me of flavored delights  
as I had never imagined. Heero pampered the  
carnal delights of my smallest senses. While Duo  
made me feel like behaving, Heero made me like the  
way I wanted to behave.  
  
I should have known better when we were speeding  
away from the confining grasp of Duo's  
neighborhood and his waiting porch swing. I asked  
him what he and Duo had talked about on the lawn.   
And, even while he didn't look at me, I knew that  
Heero's eyes had grown haunted. Deep down, those  
blue eyes were hiding their own salt tears.  
  
Now I cry tears.   
  
They mingle with the blood I earned that day. The  
blood that spills onto my hands with the fresh  
rivers of tears. My eyes are haunted, I can tell.  
  
I'm being set free once again.  
  
My angel has come.  
  
Duo had found me. He had opened the door. I  
barely dared to believe it. Why had he found me?   
"my angel my angel" I mutter stupidly.  
  
"Hilde? Heero?" his voice is light in volume,  
but carried with a quick tension from strain.  
  
I don't know how he knew. I don't know how he  
found me. My angel.  
  
Heero and I had been partners in petty crime for a  
short while before we finally saved enough to buy  
an apartment in the city. The one up north that  
called to me every day since I left that truck  
stop with Duo. For every humble responsibility  
that Duo had fostered in me, Heero had replaced it  
with a wild girl's joy.   
  
I don't know who came after us, but they were in  
before I could say a word. Heero was leaving the  
gang, but not the lifestyle. It must have made us  
easier to locate.  
  
Leaving must have been what Heero was trying to  
learn from Duo that evening on the lawn, but we  
had both refused to learn from Duo's successes.   
We were afraid of the process I guess. We were  
afraid of facing the tears that Trowa could find  
refuge in. We were afraid of balancing our  
passions with civilization like Duo's fascination  
with porches.  
  
I remember hurting, but never as much physically  
as I hurt emotionally watching my barbaric knight  
fighting on my behalf. I had given up my champion  
in a clunkish truck for a wild soldier with sharp  
knives. Knives that brought trouble.  
  
Heero tried, we were just leading each other  
around in circles while with reassuring glances  
telling each other that we were fine as we were.   
No need to change anything. Nope. We were  
unhinged, uncaged, wild children.  
  
My angel came and brushed away my tears. He swept  
away my broken heart with that motion. And he  
took us away.   
  
He took us back to Trowa who might not have been  
as thin as I remembered. His lips curled up more  
often than down.   
  
Heero lived. And our relationship changed. His  
violent politics subsided and were replaced by a  
peaceful silence without excuses.   
  
And I gave up on that stupid tattoo. My hair grows  
back so slowly, but it does grow back. I might  
even sit on the porch and watch the haunted glow  
of the sun set for a new day to begin.   
  
  
  
(well—how's that for something different? Let me know   
at stormy812@hotmail.com or at the message board for   
Lt. Noin's Guide to Gundam Wing:   
http://www.ltnoinsguidetogw.mainpage.net Thanks!)  
  
  
  
  



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